American Citizen Among Those Killed in Gaza Flotilla Raid

A State Department official says one of the nine people killed when Israeli commandos raided a Gaza-bound flotilla of pro-Palestinian activists on Monday was a 19-year-old man with dual U.S.-Turkish citizenship.

The official identified the victim as Furkan Dogan, who was believed to have been residing in Turkey.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the matter has not been officially confirmed by the U.S. government.

The official said the victim had been shot but it was not clear who shot him. He was among eight of the dead being mourned at a funeral in Istanbul Thursday.

More exact circumstances of the activists' deaths are expected to be made clear in a ballistics examination that will take about a month to complete, Anatolia news agency reported Thursday.

An official from the Turkish Islamic charity that spearheaded the campaign to bust the blockade on Gaza identified the U.S. citizen as 19-year-old Furkan Dogan, originally from the central Turkish town of Kayseri.

Dogan, who held a U.S. passport, had four bullet wounds to the head and one to the chest, Omer Yagmur of the Foundation of Humanitarian Relief (IHH), told Anatolia.

The nine victims were all aboard the Turkish ferry, Mavi Marmara, the lead ship of the aid flotilla, where most of the violence occurred in Monday's pre-dawn raid by Israeli forces.